A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
by Acerbus Machina
Summary: A Ventrue on the prowl finds out the hard way that things aren't always what they seem.


The smell was usually what drew those like him to places like this. These dance clubs, these modern day brothels with their barely-legal patrons in their barely-there clothing all writhing among one another in what they liked to call dancing. This wasn't what his mind would ever allow to call dancing, even though the mind that may have once called the waltz or the samba or anything like that dancing was long, long gone. Gone were those regal days of chaste, prerecorded movements that his family and friends had so often indulged in. Gone they were, replaced now by these modern primitives and their sexual tension that so easily built on nights like these. To his eyes, it wasn't so much as dancing as it was an orgy. Like watching your meal procreate before your very eyes. Disgusting enough that you just can't look away, like a car wreck you pass on the interstate that's bad enough to warrant the white sheets and black bags.

Once upon a time Joseph, or Jay as he called himself now, would have turned up his nose at such a display. The world was a different place now and he'd learned the hard way over the years that if you did not move with it, it would leave you behind, just like the beat of the song you may have been trying to move to. Nothing waited and if you weren't careful you would end up like so many elders of his kind did, stale and stagnant and dependant on deceitful ghouls to bring you your meals. This was _not_ the way Jay intended on being…ever. He may be of noble blood, but he knew what it meant to be self-sufficient, something his sire had taught him above all things. At least he'd learned something from the old bastard before that blasted Sewer Rat Justicar took his head. That was neither here nor there, though. Now was the time to dance, the time to writhe, the time to seduce and in the end, feed. That tension, that sexual tension that hung about the entire crowd like a thick fog, was almost good enough to eat itself. The blood, though, the blood just made it that much better.

Jay had found his mark easy enough, found her dancing in a group of girls she was obviously there with. _Weekend Ravers_, Jay thought to himself as he carefully made his way through the crowd towards the girl with the mouse-brown hair and the knee-high, buckled platform boots that gave the five or so inches that she so desperately wanted out of her true height. Her type may as well serve _themselves _on a platter with caviar, biscuits and a nice glass of chardonnay. They were truly that easy and, well, didn't that make it all worthwhile? Who liked to work too hard for their supper? He may have been self-sufficient but he still liked to relax. It was easy enough to weed himself between the girl and her small group of friends. He'd done it a hundred times before and would do it a hundred times again. He knew just how to move, just how to look at her, to smile, to wisp his black hair in front of his eyes to set off the blue of his irises that the black eyeliner he wore already accentuated. The eyes always did them in for him. One look and they were usually putty in his hands. And this girl, this more-than-likely receptionist at some law firm/hospital/accounting office/wherever, was going to be no different. Hell, she was cute enough that he just may leave her with enough memory of the carnal acts that were destined to happen during his feeding session within, judging by the way the was looking at him, the next half-hour or so.

Jay played her well enough, played her like a cat would play with a mouse and he could just tell that she just might like it that way. She'd looked amazed when Jay singled her out, almost downright thrilled, and that had cemented the deal before the Cainite had even fully made it to her. It didn't take but nearly thirty seconds of the pulsing song to have her against him, her backside grinding into him the same way so many other girls had done so many times before. She may be a meal, but there was a method to this. Play the part properly and no one asked questions. Hell, most people around them were too drunk to remember, the rest wouldn't remember him anyways. Just a perk of being what he was. Jay ran his hands down her slender body and to her hips as he leaned in close, his face pressing up against the back of her neck and into the thick brown hair hung about her shoulders. He breathed in deeply as he closed his eyes, relishing the smell of sex, sweat, and … wait a minute…what is THAT smell? _Is that gun oil?_

By the time Jay opened his eyes, that delicious sexual tension that permeated the dance floor was being fouled with something much more pungent and acrid. Fear. Jay knew that smell well. The sounds of a few people screaming and starting to back away were among the last things Jay-once-Joseph ever heard. That and a voice, speaking calmly and even in a bit of an amused manner, to him through the voices of the crowd. Jay opened his eyes slowly and looked at the black tunnel of the gun barrel in front of his face.

"Jeeeesus…. The things I do for fucking money. And man, the makeup makes you look like a fag."

The gunshot was followed by another, then another, and then three more just for good measure. The people in the club responded in the proper manner…by panicking. Like sheep running from a wolf, they moved in all directions but the one that would take them closer to the dark-haired man with the gun that was standing over the now headless body of his victim.

Cole sighed and looked around, tossing off the last remnants of his Obfuscate (the girl's goddamned nose just felt weird over his) with a vigorous shake of his head as he put the gun away. Looking down at the body, he gave Jay's finally dead foot a light kick and started to walk away, calm and collected, for the entrance. Jay had been another mark paid for with cold hard cash. That had been enough to do what he'd done, but there was something about Jay that garnered the _special_ treatment Cole had given.

No one…and that means NO ONE, scratches Cole's car in the parking lot with their own car door. No one.


End file.
